The Tenth Wheel
by Grandiose Delusions
Summary: When TF Industries decides to hire a new worker for their endless wars, what will happen? Will this tenth class become loved by his teammates, or suffer from alienation? Can they make it through the stressful conditions of the New Mexican deserts? And most importantly, can they keep up with the original team?
1. Meet the Guardian

**The Guardian**

Hey! Guess what! It's an author's note! Okay, so first FanFic ever, yay! Big milestone. I'm still new to the whole chapter thing, and don't expect regular updates because life.

All characters are owned by Valve and none of them are of my creation other than the Guardian.

All reviews are welcome, but if you must criticize, please make constructive criticism.

* * *

" _Call me Ishmael."_

 _An identical boy to the one that just spoke sighs inwardly. "You've read this book out loud to me at least sixteen times."_

 _The older twin by two minutes punches him in the shoulder. "It's a good book. Deal with it." His grin cuts through the memory._

* * *

The Guardian jolts awake in the middle of the night. Why had that particular memory come into his brain at this moment? He grumbles as he looks to the side, reminding himself that he's not home anymore. It all started a week ago, and now he's in the middle of nowhere. _No, not nowhere,_ he thinks. _New Mexico._

* * *

He had received a letter from "TF Industries." He had yet to guess what the "TF" stood for. Upon opening it, he got a form asking for his medical information and a note that said, "Fill this out and you will get a well-paid job. Bring it to 1337 TF Drive. We will answer what we can once you arrive. We will expect you on Mar. 27. Have a good day."

It was shady, now that he reflected upon it, but he and his family were under financial stress and he didn't have a stable job currently. He brought it up during dinner with his wife, but she didn't like the idea of him working so far away ("in the middle of New Mexico, in a DESERT, for goodness' sakes!"). He snuck out of the house on Mar. 26 and traveled to the giant building (the only one that looked as if it held people and not just warehouses) in the middle of TF Drive. As he entered the "MANN CO. HQ," he noticed immediately that no one was there. The small fountain sitting at the desk of presumably where a receptionist worked trickled on merrily, ignoring his discomfort.

The nameplate on the desk read "JAMIE." However, this "Jamie" was nowhere to be found. Uncomfortably, he hesitantly sat down in one of the lobby chairs. Instantly, he somehow sensed that the elevator had just left from one of the top floors. His head snapped to the elevator, but it had not arrived yet nor had it shown any signs of opening.

Rubbing his arm, he settled back into the chair. _I should probably get more sleep,_ he thought.

A bright, cheery "ding" brought him into focus as the elevator arrived. A sprightly young woman stepped out briskly, a clipboard tucked into the nook of her arm and a pencil tucked behind her ear.

She turned and saw him. "Ah, our new employee. I'm assuming you have a lot of questions. But… first, the form?"

Wordlessly, he handed over the forms. She took them and, clipping them onto the clipboard, also slid out another sheet of paper.

"A FAQ, of sorts… Sorry if it seems extremely formal but if you have any other questions not answered on that sheet then you may ask me. It saves time."

He nodded, and glanced back over the page. Some of his most prodding questions were answered, like what kind of work this was, what he was to be doing, and possible benefits.

"Not a man of many words, are you? Not like Scout. Chattered on throughout the whole process."

Glancing again at the page, he also saw who his teammates would be. _Scout_ , he mused. _A Bostonian runner and baseball lover._

"Just sign that line down there if you're ready." She handed him a pen which had seemingly appeared from nowhere.

After finishing the page, he looked up. "Just one question."

"Yeah?"

"What's your name?"

"The name's Pauling. Ms. Pauling. I work for the Administrator. You do too, if you sign. The pay's very good, as you've seen on the page."

He certainly had marveled at the amount of money. A bar of Australium, and a 900K paycheck per year. The paychecks were dished out in intervals every week.

"A real bar of Australium?"

"Oh, sorry about that. We keep meaning to get rid of that but never find the time. It's only when you do something great during the year, something commendable."

Hm. Well, still, good prospects. He stood up, deftly signed the line, and shook Ms. Pauling's hand. "Nice doing business with you."

"Great! We'll bring you to your teammates now, and implant the genetic code-reader in."

 _Wait, what?_

Ms. Pauling raised her arm, revealing a small tranquilizer gun hidden within her sleeve. "Sorry about this."

Lights out.

* * *

He woke up on an examining table, with a man in glasses leaning over him. "Ah, you've avoken. Nice to meet you. I am zee Medic."

The Medic smiled. "Now, I vill bring you to meet zee rest of your team."

The door opened, revealing a waiting room of sorts. The only person occupying the space was a large, giant of a man. He looked up from his giant minigun as they exited.

"Ah, doktor! How is leetle man doing?"

The Medic gestured to him. "Vell, let's let him answer for himself."

He waved. "Feeling good, doc."

"Good, good! Kome, let us eat Sandviches."

The Russian raised an eyebrow at the Medic. "Are you koming too, doktor?"

"Ah, vell, sure, vhy not?"

Oh, right. The Russian Heavy Weapons Guy. Heavy for short. And apparently he was inviting him to eat a sandwich?

The Heavy led them into a break room, where a black Scot and a man wearing a bucket - no, wait, just a helmet - over his eyes were having an arm wrestling match. A bottle (branded XXX) of what appeared to be alchohol sat next to the Scot and the other man screamed out profanities, spittle flying everywhere.

"YOU CALL THAT AN ARM WRESTLING MATCH, MAGGOT? I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW THE BLUE TEAM LADIES FIGHT BETTER THAN THAT! EVEN THEIR GRANDMOTHERS CAN ARM WRESTLE BETTER THAN YOU! MAN UP, YOU DRESS-WEARING ENGLISHMAN!"

The Scot, who, on further inspection, was wearing an eye patch, grumbled sarcastically. "'Ah love ya too, man."

The Medic pulled him away from the scene and tightly followed the Heavy, mumbling some words to him that he couldn't quite catch.

"- our tvoo eccentric explosife specialists…"

Right, the Soldier and the Demolition Man, or Demoman for short. He had momentarily forgotten. That stupid tranquilizer dart might've jumbled up his memory.

The trio headed inside the kitchen, where a masked man and a hard-hat wearing man were frying something that smelled delicious. His stomach grumbled involuntarily. A lanky young man with bandages on his hands was jogging in place besides the two cooks, whining with a Bostonian accent. _Scout_ , he thought.

"Aw, c'mon, hard hat! Just hurry up! I'm starvin'!"

Engineer. That must be Pyro next to him then, the fire-loving one.

Heavy led them to the refrigerator, reached inside, and pulled out three sandwiches stacked on top of each other. He grabbed two plates more and seperated the sandwiches.

Then, the Heavy led them into a dining room, where a balaclava-clad man smoked a cigarette companionably with an aviator-wearing man.

He pulled out three toothpicks with olives on them, sticking one on his sandwich and one on Medic's. He gestured at him, asking if he wanted one.

He shook his head no. "I'm good, thanks."

The Heavy shrugged, as if he didn't know what he was missing out on, and began to chow down. He finished his long before the Medic and he finished.

"Soft feeling, da?"

The sandwich had tasted spectacular. Mouth full of sandwich, he flashed Heavy a thumbs up.

"Yes, mein komrade makes the best Sandviches."

He could detect an uppercase letter on Sandvich, and so he mentally logged that it was a proper noun.

"Ah, so this is our new teammate," the balaclava-clad man spoke, with a heavy French accent.

He was the Spy.

"Another bloody bloke for me to have to deal with," the aviator-wearing one grumbled. Sniper.

"Don't mind the bushman. He's having a bad day. Now, I expect Heavy and Medic have already shown you your room."

The pair glanced at each other sheepishly.

"No? Well zen… get going?"

They hopped up and began to pull him along.

Spy, the de facto leader of the group. Interesting.

Soon, they arrived at his quarters, an uninteresting room with a locker, a bed, and a dresser. A window brought a small smidgen of light into the room, along with the single lightbulb on the ceiling. When he glanced out the window, all he saw was sand, with a few tumbleweeds here and there.

"Vell, mein freund, I sink ve'fe troubled you enough for vun day. Gute nacht."

He tiredly waved them away, too tired to even feel hungry anymore. He shut the door behind them and sank into a restful sleep.


	2. Meet the Bohemian

**The Guardian**

Hey! It's me again! In case you didn't know, Bohemian (at the risk of gross oversimplification) basically means outsider, nonconformist, or misfit. The odd one out.

Once again, none of these characters are owned by me, except for Mr. Guardian here. They all belong to Valve.

Thanks for your reviews again!

Warning! This chapter contains mild profanity (a-word) and references to the more severe profanity (f-word) and stuff. Not for the weak of heart.

* * *

He had woken up at the crack of dawn. Being used to kill missions, he figured that this wouldn't be as different. As he trundled down the hallway that contained everyone's sleeping quarters, smiling at the thought of being the only one awake. Also being a punctual man, he already was dressed in his uniform - with a strange circle emblem on one shoulder of the red uniform that showed an eye in the center of it.

The armor was heavy, though. Oof.

He rubbed his eyes and took a quick trip to the bathroom. After he finished his business, he glanced at himself in the mirror.

 _Not bad_.

He walked into the kitchen, making as if to make breakfast for everyone, when he skid to a stop. Slowly, he turned his head to find the Demoman passed out on the couch. For a second he thought that the Scot was watching him, but on further inspection, it became clear that the Demoman had passed out with his eyes open and a bottle of scrumpy in his hand.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he began rifling through the refrigerator. It would have been pretty creepy, he admitted, to see the Scot stand up and talk to him. He still had mixed feelings about drunk men, after what his father had done. _No, don't think about that_. _Bad. Father is the F-word, dude._

He began to make a breakfast classic, scrambled eggs and bacon. As the sizzling sound of frying filled the air and the delicious smell of bacon followed it, he was startled to hear someone talking.

"'Ahm gonna take ya down to the pain train station in train town…"

It was only the Demoman, drunkenly sleeptalking.

 _Huh._

"yer arse's arse and… 'Ahm the grass man, punk ya havin'..."

He turned around and dished the delicious meal out onto plates and set the table. He almost dropped one when he heard a shot fired from a shotgun, the sound drifting in from the window.

Slowly, he climbed over to the window and peeked out. To his immense surprise, the soldier was standing next to a row of heads on a fence. It was truly a gruesome fight. They seemed to be his own teammate's heads!

 _I never pegged Soldier for a traitor…_ He then realized that one of the heads, whose blue helmet had fallen off, was wearing a blue headband. _Blue team? I mean, BLU team? How… Why does that look exactly like our team's Scout? It's uncanny…!_

The Soldier seemed to be monologuing to the heads… perhaps a drill? _I guess everyone to his own_ …

He walked back to the plates, but was interrupted by a drunken hello from the recently-unconscious Demoman.

"Ey, lad… what's that smell?"

"Huh? Oh… um, I was making breakfast."

"God dammit, it betta not be on my pan…"

 _Holy crap. Demo's pan? What?_

Surprisingly fast for a drunken man, he lumbered over to the stove, where he pulled the frying pan off it and dunked it in the pile of dirty dishes.

"Ya bloody idiot, thaht's mah melee!"

"I- I'm sorry, I didn't know…"

"Ach, I betta cut ya some slack anyways. Yer the newbie, right?"

"Yeah. Can I make it up to you?"

The one-eyed man scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Ya could wash that pile of dishes."

So ten minutes later, as everyone sat down to enjoy their meal (except for the Pyro, who took his plate to his quarters), he was washing plates. Demoman, Soldier, and Scout ran by, dunked their plates into the pile of dishes, with various thanks.

"Thanks, G!"

"Thanks, mate!"

"GOOD JOB, MAGGOT!"

Sniper and Spy walked by, dumping their plates in as well.

"Merci, mon ami."

"Thanks, wanker!"

Medic, Heavy, and Engineer walked over and before he could yell at them mentally, they washed their own plates. "I reckon you got enough on your hands."

"Da."

He raised an eyebrow and nodded at them in thanks, cleaning the pan (finally) and placing it back in the scrumpy cabinet. Before Engie was about to leave, he reached over and grabbed his overalls.

"Guh! Oh, Guard. Whatcha want?"

"Um, well, I saw Soldier's heads."

The Texan visible shuddered. "Heck yes, I remember when I first saw them. Nearly lost mah lunch."

"Um, well, why are the heads… you know, ours?"

Engineer looked around nervously. "Well, I reckon you'd better come in here."

He dragged him into his quarters, adorned with many small trinkets and mechanical knick-knacks.

"Listen, pal, don't ask those kinda questions 'round here. They're always listenin' to our talk and if they don't like it… well, let's jus' say you might wanna be afraid. But here's the truth. Ya know how they put that genetic thingy in ya?"

He nodded.

"Well, apparently they use it to clone ya. I know, I know, sounds ridiculous, but it's true. Unless they can find a twin, in which case, well… unlikely."

He paled.

"But, listen here. Those things also allow ya to respawn - basically, when ya die, ya come back to life. I think that our employers want the war to continue for a long long time to come.

"Okay, ah think that's enough for now. Bye."

Unceremoniously shoved out the door, he was left to think about it himself.

That peace didn't last very long though.

* * *

After sitting in his room, pondering what had happened, an alarm blared through the rooms.

"ALERT! BLU SPY IN BASE!"

A distant sound of "Another one? Damn."

Sniper, he supposed. He dashed out of the room, weapons that he had found inside the closet in hand. A Colt of some sort, a pistol, and a strange mace of some sort. He had dubbed it Morning Star - the last thing his enemies could see. The spike on top had a red tip, and after reading the note that came with it, found that he could use it to extinguish his teammates. He also found that his armor had a passive +1 health per second regeneration rate, apparently used to heal himself and teammates in a radius. Interesting ability. But now, his mind was set on his fourth item. A radar. It sent out a pulse every now and then, and when he pulled on his helmet he could see how long its regenerative battery lasted, his health, and other things. It also amplified his strange sensing ability, allowing him to "see" his teammates' outlines through walls. And thus, he watched as "Spah's sappin' mah sentry!"

He saw the sapper… well, not saw, per se, but felt it. So, he sprinted in the direction of the intelligence room, knowing that the Engineer was not far in front of him. When he arrived, Engineer was in a deadly battle with the… Spy? Wearing a blue suit? Right, blue is bad. He brought up his Colt and tightened his finger on the trigger.

Round after round flew into the Spy, knocking him into the wall and splattering blood all over the Engineer. With a deft strike of his wrench, the Engineer smashed the Spy's head in before smacking the sapper off the sentry.

"'Preciate it."

Breathing heavily, the Guardian set down his weapon. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the Engineer stare in confusion at himself.

"What the… I'm healin'."

"Oh, right. My armor does that."

The Engineer looked up gratefully. "Thanks."

He nodded and walked away…

And heard a sharp "czzzksh."

Then, he turned around and looked directly into the barrel of a revolver. A silver one, to be exact.

 _Bang_.

He watched his health go down and tried to react, tried to move out of the way, tried to fire his weapon.

 _Bang_.

His reflexes kicked in as soon as he felt the blood dripping onto his lip. He pulled out his gun -

 _Bang._

And then he was falling, through a murky darkness. He could make out images - first came the Spy, standing victoriously over his body…

The Engineer, whose shotgun had just fired, countless bullets flying into the Spy -

The Sniper, who had just entered the room, throwing a jar at the Spy -

The Pyro, who had come into the room, flames bursting from his weapon -

And suddenly darkness.

* * *

"Clear!"

Groggily, he blinked to try and clear his head of the blurriness.

"Ooh, back from zee dead!"

He faded back into unconsciousness, glad for the release.

He woke up later, in his room. His helmet had done nothing to protect him from the bullets. In fact, it seemed as if they had passed through it. He felt his head, expecting to feel a bloody hole.

He was fine.

No, he was not. He had just died.

He sat in his room for the next couple of hours, trying to get over the nausea and the feelings of death.

Unfortunately, he was interrupted. Pyro peeked into the room, tapped him on the shoulder.

"Mmph mmph mmph!"

His brain tried to work through it . _Time… to… go?_

"Go where?"

The Pyro stopped short, as if surprised he could understand him. "Mmphmmph."

"Dustbowl? Where's that?"

The masked man shrugged. "Mmph mph mmph mm mmph mmph mm mmphmph. Mmph mm mmph!"

"Somewhere in the middle of the desert… first battle time?"

The Pyro nodded vigorously, and gestured to the uniform he had thrown on the floor after feeling weighed down by them, and pointed at his closet.

A few minutes later, he sat in the back of a campervan, feeling a heavy weight settle in the bottom of his stomach - it felt like he'd swallowed a block of lead.

 _I'm doing this one battle, then I'm leaving._

 _I can't deal with this anymore._

 _No more._


	3. Meet the Coalition

**The Guardian**

Hello again, my fellow readers! If you've been following along, which is probably true, please tell me anything I should change.

And I suppose another mandatory disclaimer. None of these characters belong to me except for the OC (I recently found out it meant Original Character. The More You Know). They all are "property" of Valve.

If you're confuzzled on G's background, I intended that to be a fact. You'll learn his name soon enough (winky face here).

Note, we're playing before Gun Mettle happened. Thus, OP Dead Ringers and weapon drops = ammo.

Another warning: mild profanity (d-word (like, Hoover Dam). Deal widd it.

Oh, and coalition does not mean coal. It means alliance - team.

* * *

 _Holy crap, we're going to fight people._

The RED team lounged around in the Resupply room, informally known by the team as "Respawn." It made him sick to the stomach to think about his first one.

A timer in the upper corner of his helmet ticked down slowly. _61_.

"Mission begins in sixty seconds."

The loudspeaker in the corner crackled to life for a brief moment.

The Demoman walked up, pan in hand. "'Ahm here for ya… Listen, ahm not to shore what ah can do for ya, but if ya need anythin', feel free to ahsk."

The drunk walked away uncomfortably. Maybe they were warming up to him after all.

Medic was busy fussing with his machine, a red beam flowing out of it into the Heavy, who was chowing down on a Sandvich.

"Mission begins in thirty seconds."

He slowly stood up, his Colt in hand, a pistol in his belt, and Morning Star in a sheath on his back. His teammates did the same, slowly shuffling their items into their hands, pockets, or onto their backs.

Engineer pulled out a PDA, tapping a few buttons in quick succession before he pulled out a red toolbox with the number "24" on it. The Texan turned around, setting it on a bench, and at the same time noticing the Guardian watching him.

"I tell the machine inside what device I want, and it prefabricates it." Noticing his confused stare, the Engineer revised his word choice. "I told it to make a teleporter."

Nodding, he turned towards the door and slowly trudged towards it.

"Mission begins in ten seconds."

The inspection of weapons completed for the whole team, the front-line fighters began to head towards the spawn door. Before he could go, though, he was stopped by Engie.

"Listen, how about you stay with me an' Pyro?"

Thankful to be away from the enemy and fighting, he followed Engineer, who had nodded at their resident fire maniac and the Sniper, who both followed.

"Pyro helps protect mah sentry, and Sniper can be protected by Spies."

"Five."

"Four."

The Guardian watched as the front-line fighters (and Spy) tensed.

"Three."

"Two."

Engie held the quartet back, obviously meaning _Wait for 'em to leave._

" _One._ "

"Wooohoohoo!" The Scout ran off, leaving the rest of his team in the dust. A HUD in his helmet told the Guardian that the first control points were theirs and the middle one was to be contested.

Engie placed his teleporter down, and he watched, fascinated as it unfolded by itself. Then, they headed over to the nearest control point to the middle, and began to set up. Sniper climbed up a little ways and scoped in. Pyro stood by as Engie built a dispenser for him, and the Guardian held out his Colt, wary of any possible enemies. However, no one decided to challenge them. It seemed, from the kill feed, that their team had not held up too well against the BLU team at the neutral control point.

Engineer was busy whacking the currently level two sentry when he asked Pyro for something. Pyro, happy to oblige, popped open his flares and emptied them out. To Guardian's surprise, they turned into little pellets of metal, which the Engineer used to keep upgrading the metal monster.

Engineer ran off to grab a metal pack nearby, Pyro following closely. The Guardian, however, stayed by the sentry, Morning Star in hand. Engineer had told him he could use the weapon to remove sappers on his sentry. Maybe it would come in handy.

Sniper's finger tightened, a blast was heard, and the distinct sound of a heavy-caliber bullet striking metal occurred.

"Bloody spooks… There's a spy creepin' around here, mate. Keep one eye on your back."

Sniper turned away, not seeing Guardian visibly pale. The last spy encounter…

 _No, do not think about that._

 _Do not think about it._

The amplified sensing power heightened suddenly, allowing him to see a faint outline behind the Sniper.

 _Spy,_ he thought. Hurriedly dropping the Morning Star onto the ground, he began to pull out his Colt.

The Spy decloaked, knife easily flicking out of his sleeve.

 _Ratatatatat._

The Spy fell over, dead.

Or was he?

Sniper jumped around, found the dead body, and scowled. "Bloody spies. Thanks mate."

He reached inside his uniform's jacket.

"Let's see how ya like this, spook."

The jar came out again, like he had seen during his death. It flew forwards, splashed onto the ground, and a dripping wet outline appeared.

"Oh… _Merde._ Filthy bushman!"

Grinning wickedly, the Australian pulled out a sharp knife and swung.

The Spy fell to the ground, dead - for the second time.

By this time Engineer and Pyro had arrived, and, seeing the smoking Colt, Sniper's knife embedded in a BLU Spy's head, and two corpses, they high-fived each other. "Nice one, guys."

"Alert! They have captured one of our control points."

The originally neutral point, which had been captured for one second before the RED team had been crushed, was now under BLU control.

"Dammit!"

The teleporter exit Engie had placed on the floor suddenly came to life, a disgruntled Spy walking off.

"Thank you, laborer. I must warn you, they have an Übercharge on zee way. Be careful."

Engie placed his dispenser on the ground, watched it unfold for one second, and then pulled a… videogame controller? out of his pocket. He smiled, placed his Rescue Ranger on the dispenser, and listened.

"I AM BOOLETPROOOF! AHAHAAHAAA!"

Fast as lightning, Pyro sprinted off in that direction. Engie pulled out the controller, hit a button, and a shield appeared over the sentry. The Rescue Ranger loosely gripped in one hand, controller in the other. The wrench was pinched between his teeth.

Guardian followed Pyro, seeing Sniper gesture at him. The battlefront adrenaline pumped through his veins as an uncountable amount of butterflies tickled his stomach. He hated his job, didn't he?

 _It can't be that bad._

He stepped around the corner, itching for some action, to see Pyro keeping them at bay as the Pyro compression blasted the Übered Heavy-Medic pair backwards. He… she… IT took a lot of bullets in the process - too many. If they kept this up, they'd die.

Within himself, he knew what he had to do.

Putting power into his legs, he lunged in front of the Pyro, bracing for the barrage of bullets that would fly into him.

It burned like a thousand stars decided to nestle themselves into his torso.

The edges of his vision became blurry, the health bar went down.

But miraculously, the Übercharge chose that moment to deactivate.

"Damn!" the enemy Heavy cursed in his thick Russian accent as they were engulfed in flames.

"MY FLESH! EET BURNS!"

The fight or flight adrenaline fueling his moves, the Guardian reached for his Colt. Pinned underneath him, however, it was rendered useless. Thus, he unclipped his pistol off the belt and fired at the Medic.

 _Bang, bang, bang._

The Medic fell over, a burning pile of ashes before you could say "DOOKTOR!"

Which is what the Heavy did before he suffered the same fate.

Pyro helped the Guardian up, and they limped together back to the sentry nest.

"Damn, did you guys already clean 'em up? Nice."

Out of the corner of his fading vision, the Guardian noticed that their team was returning to the front, presumably to retake the point.

Engie propped them both up besides his dispenser.

"Huh, I guess today a dispenser's in demand."

As the beam of light flew into him, the Guardian felt his vision clearing.

 _Thank god, no respawn._

He stood back up, waveringly. "I'm gonna go and help out on the front lines."

Engineer looked worried, but Pyro patted him on the shoulder. "Mmh mmph."

 _He's fine._

The Guardian supposed that Pyro would relate the story to Engie later. It didn't matter too much to him - after all, he was the _Guard_ ian. He was supposed to help.

He belonged here.


	4. Meet the Broken Shards

**The Guardian**

Hello once again. Not much to say right now, just… enjoy this chapter?

None of these characters are mine, 'cept for G. All of 'em belong to Valve.

Ooh, yay, some people have read this! ^_^

Happy Winter Break, and have a Tough Break! (Update joke, wink wink)

Seriously, they buffed the Phlog? And nerfed the Degreaser? Okay, that one did need a bit of a nerf, but I JUST GOT IT. Dang.

At least Medic is getting buffed. That's gr8 m8!

Oh, wait, hold up. Did Demoknight in general get nerfed?

Success Kid

Note: This part of the story goes back to the beginning, while he's trying to sleep.

Warnings: N/A

* * *

Their frontline, newly replenished and regrouped, charged into the fray, plus one Guardian. Colt blasting, bullets flying, Spy's frying -

Wait, what?

The RED Spy on his left had met an unsightly Pyro, with bugged-out eyes and a rubber glove flapping noisily around on his head.

Spy, at the moment, was suffering from severe burns as the BLU Pyro chased after him.

Instinctually, being afraid of the French rogue (albeit being a RED), he swung his Morning Star at him. To both of their surprises, the fire extinguished.

"Mmphmphmmph!"

"If I had a bar of soap right now I'd wash your mouth… but I have to kill you."

The Pyro fell dead after a quick successive couple of blows and a few bullets, fired off by the resident RED Spy.

"Thank you."

The aforementioned fiend faded into the air, cloaking to get behind enemy lines. The enemy team had been pushed back, and RED Pyro was leading the charge, setting a Scout on fire.

Suddenly, the Scout's fire extinguished, and he bashed the Pyro's head in with a skull-crushing blow.

Behind him was… himself?

Time seemed to slow as the Guardian stared at the mirror image of himself, standing on the other team, grinning viciously as he mowed down the RED Scout.

 _That can't be… No way, they cloned me?_

The BLU Guardian turned and saw the RED Guardian. A look of utter shock and surprise flew across his face.

The two stood rock still in the middle of the firefight, rockets and bullets and grenades whizzing by, having a sort of staring contest.

Then, in a blink of an eye, it was over. The BLU Sniper had chuckled at the prospect of the RED Guardian "standin' around like a bloody idiot!"

The RED Sniper seemed to have the same idea.

The pair of Guardians noticed the enemy-colored light flash over their eyes for one, precious millisecond…

And then they were just another two corpses on the floor.

Death claimed the RED Guardian mercifully fast. He barely felt the hole in his head before he fell through the dark murk of his death.

Once again, he saw his team, overcoming the BLUs. But… he couldn't focus on that right now. Did TF Industries really clone him?

It couldn't be. It's not possible.

 _It can't be true_.

* * *

That night, after a weary victory, he decided on a course of action. A dangerous one, but a necessary one - in his opinion.

The RED Frenchman would not be too pleased.

He was pretty sure that the Spy was asleep, but who knew what went on inside the assassin's mind. Thus, he creeped towards the Spy's quarters. Before he could even leave the room, a sudden weariness from all the respawns bearing down on him like hungry wolverines. He collapsed on the floor, in his light sleeping clothes.

The next day arrived in all its desert sun glory and it seemed that he had completely lost his will to investigate.

He seemed to be full of rage for no reason whatsoever that day.

He felt like his body was out of his control. During the battle of Dustbowl, he smashed through the BLU's meager attacking forces, respawning several times from a lucky critical rocket and a couple of headshots, but never, never by a knife in the back.

The battles had been quick and decisive, with Guardian ending up with the most points that day.

"Good job - you'll be getting a bonus."

The curious thing was, he had never, not once, never killed the BLU Guardian. Something reminded him of himself, and yet of some other memory obviously shoved deep within the shut and padlocked chest of his childhood.

And for the life of him he couldn't remember where he left the key.

* * *

The rest of the week passed by relatively quickly, with that rage fueling him until Friday, after which a grueling defeat (even though he fought well) on Turbine wiped the team out. Most of them skipped dinner and retired to their quarters. The Guardian, while feeling very hungry, simply ate a Sandvich and slumped down on his bed (shoes on, ew), quickly and quietly falling asleep.

He had settled into the role of ruthless killer, even going so far as to kill his BLU counterpart in the battle of Gorge. Truth be told, it was an accidental shot, but still… it sort of haunted him.

The Guardian awoke in the middle of the night. Why had that particular memory - oh…

Oh, no.

No way. It couldn't be true.

Rubbing the half-sleep from his eyes, the mercenary climbed out of his bed and instictively reached inside his supply cabinet. Pulling out his Colt, he froze.

Stealth mission, right? Don't bring loud, noisy weapons. He placed it back in the locker, leaving the pistol with it. But the Morning Star… he was going to take it.

He hooked the mace into his belt as he pulled on some light, comfortable clothes. If his teammates saw him now he'd look like a "civvie."

He would need the help of the Spy, whether the assassin liked it or not.

Steeling himself, he stepped forwards, held up a fist, and began to lower it towards the door -

"Come in."

The Guardian winced. Remembering what he came for, he opened up the door. The French was smoking a cigarrette again, looking out his window. "It appears you are also having trouble sleeping, no?"

"Yeah… Listen, Spy, I need to borrow some of your advice."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Hypothetically speaking, what if I decided to go and take on our employers and see what they were up to?"

"Well, hypothetically speaking, you would be discovered and probably detained. 'owever, for a man wiz my skills, well, zat's a different story."

"So, hypothetically speaking, what kind of info would you have sniffed out?"

"Hrm, I suppose, hypothetically speaking, that I would find information on the employees, both RED and BLU, not to mention countless other plots that would doubtless occur."

"Okay, thanks, Spy."

"If you're going to do it you're going to need more zen my advice."

And that's how the Guardian gained an ally.

The pair snuck into the office that the Guardian had visited before, but this time he was cloaked, thanks to the Spy.

On the desk, carelessly strewn about and covered with grease marks, were papers of seemingly great importance, as blatantly stated upon the files they were contained in.

A nameplate boasted proud, capital letters: SAXTON HALE.

After digging through the desk, they found some files about later bug fixes (Spy was particularly horrified at the thought of his Dead Ringer being nerfed) but nothing about the BLU team.

It was at this time that they noticed the file cabinets on either side of the desk. Besides them stood many different statues - was that a yeti? - but no sign of any interlopers.

The two rifled through the file cabinets, stopping several times when they heard an Australian man arguing.

"Listen, Bidwell, I'm positive I heard something goin' around in my desk."

"I'm sure it's nothing."

The Aussie left, still mumbling about strange noises in the night, and the Guardian and the Spy returned to business.

After about half an hour of searching, the Spy tapped him on the shoulder. The Guardian nearly jumped out of his skin.

"I 'ave found zee BLU file."

Eagerly, Guardian grabbed it, opening it up and flipping to the page on his BLU counterpart. He needed to see for himself, if it was true, if his dream was really a premonition.

"BLU Guardian, AKA Sam, is a 20 year old professional killer. Twin brother (older by two minutes) to RED Guardian (see file), Miles. Warnings: Can be unpredictable at times. Gets along with BLU Scout extremely well. Keep an eye on him interacting with his brother. May cause problems later."

The papers hit the ground with a thud.

The next thing the Guardian knew, he had awoken. The rest of his teammates were packing for the weekends, Spy seemingly anxious to return. A previous incident, apparently, allowed the team to make fun of the rogue.

"Off ta see yer girl again, mate?" the Scot slurred out.

"Oh, merde. Stop it."

Ignoring the hullabaloo, the Guardian began to slowly pack a suitcase. Numbly, he stumbled out of the base, checking once again to make sure all of his belongings that he would be taking would be taken, and then entered the back of the van.

The bumps on the road only got worse, but the Guardian only sat there, each jolt seemingly disappearing, not affecting him.

The van arrived at the main offices of TF Industries. Something felt wrong as he got into his car and drove towards his house.

He pulled up in the driveway, keys in hand as he walked towards the house.

The door swung open…

He should've known that his life would fall apart.


	5. Put Back Together

**The Guardian**

 **Hello once again. There is some inspiration for this chapter, and credit is due.**

 **First, I'd like to thank Kyle Seeley for his amazing game Emily is Away (F2P on Steam, try it out) and Fall Out Boy for Centuries, which I currently have on loop blasting into my eardrums. The lyrics kind of have some effect on me that makes me want to ruin Miles' life. Oh yay, we know his real name now!**

 **#civvie**

 **Yay, they re-debuffed the Phlog. Relief.**

 **Warnings: A-word, oh noes. Also, there's a c-word. whoa that's in tents man**

 **sorry for the late update life happened**

* * *

Miles, dressed in his civilian clothes, crumpled to the ground. Tears streamed from his face. Somehow, he knew this would happen.

If one was to see what caused him this intense emotional pain they'd have to read the note that was grasped tightly in Miles' hand.

"Dear my beloved Miles,

I know you've fought hard just to keep our relationship alive. I can't deal with you working all day - I think we both need to find ourselves. This financial failure was just an obstacle for us, and it's pushed us apart. I love you, but I can't stand the thought of us working all day and never finding time for us.

I'm sorry.

Goodbye,

Andrea"

On the flip side of the life-ending note, a crass note from his wife's brother was hastily scrawled: "Send the checks to my house. You know where it is. Support your goddamn wife, you half-assed idiot."

The Guardian stood up abruptly, masking his pain with a mask of peace. However, tears still streamed out of his eyes.

He lit a match.

The note fluttered into the now burning fireplace.

He watched as it shriveled, the tears that had stained its papery surface disappearing.

He would sit there until the fire died.

* * *

The BLU Guardian walked wearily. The week had been terrible for their team, being crushed multiple times by the REDs. That didn't matter though. There was a RED him…

But it couldn't be true. Their office had cloned him.

He would kill his clone. They would be out of range of the respawning signal, and the office always could make a new one.

It could not be Miles, the sweet little boy who was his brother. It could not be possible. Sam's life might have gone down the crap chute, but never Miles. It had to be a clone. Miles was that sweet boy who never buckled up, opened the window fully, and laughed into the wind. The boy who dared to jump into the lake even after knowing full well that there were no clean clothes at home for him. The boy who was a daredevil, a friend, a brother. It had to be a clone.

So, Sam had tracked the unwary RED all the way back to his home.

He stopped at the sight of the RED crumpling to the ground. _What happened_?

About fifteen seconds passed, and then the RED Guardian stood up, better.

The BLU watched as the other Guardian lit a match, started a fire, and burned the note.

 _I don't care what my clone does. I'm here to kill him, aren't I?_

Steeling himself, the BLU walked in the open door. He flipped the butterfly knife he had stolen from their assassin open - to find that the RED just sat there, not even reacting to the knife.

"Come on in," he said. The voice was full of pain and regret.

He must have been devastated.

"I noticed you trailing me. I suppose you're here to kill me."

The RED, still facing the other way, waited for a response.

The BLU didn't oblige.

"Hello, Sam."

The BLU was shocked all the way down into his gut. Somewhere in the vast expanse of his mind, a memory screamed _déjà vu._

"M-Miles?"

A slight nod from the RED - no, his _brother_ \- confirmed his suspicions.

"Oh my god, Miles. What happened to you?"

"Everything went down the crap chute."

"Care to explain?"

And so the RED recounted where his life began to crash into the crap chute.

* * *

"The stock market failed. I didn't pull out but I was invested in all the wrong things. Our money quickly disappeared, thanks to those debtors. Andrea and I were working all the time just to keep going.

And then I got the offer from TF Industries. I took it but… Andrea decided she couldn't live with that decision.

I found out you were the BLU. I don't understand what's going on in my life."

Sam spoke. "No matter what else happens, we're brothers. We'll stand by each other.

"I'll support you."

* * *

When he returned to work the next week, he almost felt happy to be in the weird mismatching life of a mercenary.

The nine - no, wait, eight, Soldier was outside preaching to his heads - misfits he had to deal with almost were endearing.

That euphoric feeling was broken when Soldier stormed in, three arrows stuck in his arm and yet still screaming. Scout choked on his breakfast, the milk shooting out his nose and an audible thump as he fell to the floor, laughing it up.

"YOU MAGGOTS BETTER BE EATING HEALTHY! WE NEED TO ALWAYS BE READY FOR WAR! ESPECIALLY WHEN THE BLU TEAM LADIES BREAK CEASEFIRE!"

 _Wait, what?_

Medic got up, inspected the wounds, and shrugged. Those injuries were nothing for his Medigun.

"Whoa, slow down there, Soldier. What did ya say?"

"EAT A HEALTHY MAGGOT, BREAKFAST!"

"Nah, the other thing."

"GET READY FOR MAGGOT, WAR!"

"No, the other thing."

"BLU TEAM BROKE YOUR MAGGOTTY MOTHER, CEASEFIRE!"

"Yeh, I don't think that's allowed."

"I WAS LUCKY THAT SNIPER COULDN'T AIM! YOU NEED TO MANN UP, LADIES!"

Spy stood up, dressed in his suit as usual. "Please, mon friend, stop spitting out useless cliches and tell us why on earth zey would do such a zing."

"HE TRIED TO SHOOT MY HEADS! I HAD TO PROTECT THEM!"

"Mon dieu…" Spy shook his head, and glanced Miles' way. "You see zat zis is what I 'ave to deal vith every single day."

After the breakfast escapade, they prepped for an uneventful day of war at Dustbowl, Engineer going over good sentry locations with the Pyro, Demoman counting his beer bottles ("I 'ave to drink to keep up with all yer shenanigans, private haircut!"), Spy polishing his revolver, Medic and Heavy laughing over some joke that no one else knew, Scout messing around, yada yada yada. The Guardian, figuring he should help out the Engineer again, tentatively headed over to where Engie and Pyro were discussing something.

"Mmmph, mmph! Mmphmmph…" Pyro gestured frantically, trying to convey his point to the Texan.

"Well, I reckon that's true, but it's safe from those damn stickybombs."

The pair stopped short once Miles arrived. Instantly, he felt like he had done something wrong.

"Well, what if the newbie here helped me out?" The Engie shot a sorry glance over his way. "Sorry, I didn't mean to -"

"No, it's fine. What were we arguing about?"

"Mmphs!" _Spies._

"Oh. Er... I thought you could take care of them, Pyro."

"Mph mmph mmph Mmdh mmphd mh mh mmphmpph mph mmph."

"Ah, so you're going to go help out Medic."

Pyro nods his head vigorously.

"I can protect from Spies. I mean, if that's okay."

"Problem solved then. Go on, ya little firebug."

The next thing he knew, he was in the Respawn room, waiting for the pre-round five second freeze period to be over.

(He didn't know why it was even there, but whatever.)

Engie looked his way worriedly… It seemed as if he knew how troubled Miles was. Mind-reading device? Eh, the Texan inventor seemed capable enough to invent one...

Afterwards, their team plonked down defenses, Sniper climbing into his favorite sniping spot, stickybombs rolling around, Medic building up an uber, etc. etc. No one knew of their impending doom.

There was a funny feeling behind the Guardian's eyes… something was different this time. Just before he looked about for the new threat, everything went green. His eyes burned. His brain itched. He had pains in areas he had never known to be able to feel pains.

But he immediately knew, as if he had known all along. _We_ _are fighting computers._

The strange vision faded away and Engie pulled his collapsed body off of his dispenser. "You alright, bud? You look real tired."

Miles stood up, shaking off the dizziness and remnants of the pain wrought by the vision. "I'm fine… I just had a rough weekend, that's all. I think -"

"Mission begins in thirty seconds."

"You what?"

"I said… the people we're going to fight… they're not human. They're different… They shouldn't be fighting us… it kinda explains why they broke the ceasefire…"

"Your point is…?" The mercenary adjusted his goggles as he checked his weapons one more time.

"I think they're robots."

"Don't be ridiculous, they're human like us (well, they respawn)... Are ya sure?"

"Yes."

"Hm, well… Look pretty real to me," the Engineer said, gesturing at the enemy Sniper and Engies (two) crouching and jumping near the door.

Miles thought for a moment. "Look at them. Just keep your eyes on them and don't move."

The hard-hatted man, obviously confused, did as he said.

Soon enough, the BLUs waved (in the case of the Sniper) and dropped their toolboxes to laugh.

"Why, the damn sons a' guns are taunting!"

"They're not real."

"Mission begins in ten seconds."

Miles jogged off, a quick whisper in his teammates' ears led them to calm indifference, outright shock, and questionable grinning (from the Scout).

"Five."

Miles headed back to the sentry nest.

"Four."

"Three."

He pulled out his Colt and squinted. The Sniper wasn't scoping in yet.

"Two."

"One."

* * *

The BLU scoped in almost instantaneously, taking out their Sniper quickly. His inhuman aim then proceeded to take out Scout (who cursed as he dodged the first bullet and was killed by the second), Engineer, Pyro, and the Demoman. The light of blue death flashed towards Medic -

"Ready to charge!"

Guardian had a bullet hole in his chest - one obtained from jumping in front of Medic. As he fell back to earth, the pain eating away at him from the inside, the Colt in his hands fired - one, two, three times, sending the enemy Sniper into a critical rocket flying his way. As quick as lightning, a new Sniper replaced him - this time, he had a bow. The arrow flew towards Soldier, hitting him in the arm.

"GOD DAMNIT! AGAIN! YOU MAGGOT!" Soldier's shovel flew into the enemy Sniper's head with a resounding thunk. "I WILL SEND MY CONDOLENCES TO YOUR KANGAROO WIFE!"

Medic healed up Guardian and Soldier and übered Heavy, who proceeded to take out the enemy Demoman, the enemy Medic, the enemy Heavy, and the enemy Soldier. Both teams now decimated, with Spy, Medic, Heavy, and the Guardian on RED and Spy, Pyro, and Scout on BLU. The BLU team seemed to be missing an Engineer (being an attacking force) and a Guardian, which he supposed was due to the lack of genetic information for programming a clone.

"Deathmatch mode initiated. Try to kill at least _one_ of them."

Miles knew it. The computers were going to be vamped up - his suspicions were confirmed when all the health kits disappeared and Engineer complained that he couldn't respawn in his ear.

Then, the BLU Spy decloaked. His knife slid easily out of his sleeve as he flicked it towards the Guardian's back. The Guardian whirled around, Morning Star in hand, smashing the Spy right in the face. The Spy wiped his smug grin off his French face and pulled out his revolver, firing. In the background the RED Spy glanced around before cloaking away.  
Guardian pulled out his Colt and fired as well, both taking substantial hits to their health. The Spy keeled over, dead, as Guardian crouched down with only a third of his health remaining.

Medic gave him a thumbs up, but before he could heal him, the BLU Scout ran over and clonked Heavy on the head with his aluminum bat, denting it. Medic returned to healing Heavy, who was busy taking out the BLU Scout, shooting an apologetic look at Guardian.

Then, the world erupted into flames.


	6. Meet the Robots

**The Guardian**

 **Oh snappity snap! What happened to Guard! D: Let's find out!**

 **Disclaimer: all characters belong to Valve, yada yada yada, blah blah blah, I don't own them, blah**

 **h word oh noes everyone run away**

 **OKAY LET'S MOVE 'ER FORWARD SHALL WE**

 **Double update, 2x as much as normal yay**

* * *

Sam was having a bad day. A really bad one, as a matter of fact.

The recent losses of the BLU team had led to them NOT GETTING AN ASSIGNMENT that day! This meant that they received no pay.

But what troubled Sam more was… who was fighting RED?

He instinctively knew.

 _Robots._

* * *

Guardian burnt to a crisp as Spy backstabbed the BLU pyromaniac. He burned - it felt like hell on earth - and everything faded to black, into that strange abyss of respawn. He had become familiar with its darkness - what else could you do other than get used to it? It was like an annoying puppy dog - you can't do anything to get it to change until it grew up… and Guardian was 99% sure that darkness didn't grow.

But hey, he was a mercenary, not a scientist. How would he know?

Common sense? Don't be ridiculous. A person with common sense would not flail himself into harms way, first for Pyro and next for Medic. He had bucketloads of bravery, then. No, just foolishness - and this desperate need to be protecting something, now that Andr - his wife had walked out on him. Why did he keep the job?

The murkiness of the respawn surrounded him and enveloped him, bringing those darkest thoughts out of the back of his mind, into the forefront. Because, as everything was dark, why not his thoughts?

Why had he kept the job?

He supposed, as any reasonable person would, that it was to keep supporting Andr - his wife throughout the pain. But she had left him and, as she left, taken a piece of his heart with her. So why would he support someone who had torn a hole inside his heart? Yes, he would continue to support her, he would pretend she hadn't betrayed him. But surely he had not kept the job for her. He was...

Devoid of love, missing something.

Companionship. And that was what this job was, in a twisted way. What better way to make friends through the hardships and triumphs of war?

Especially infinite war? If what the Texan had said to be true was, in fact, true, then… well, all the better for his "friend-making," no? Heck, this war was getting so important, you might as well smack a capital "W" on that, just like the Russian's sandwiches - Sandviches.

Turn around turn, bend after bend, his mind snaked through the confusion and chaos of his mind, opening suitcases locked with memories, questions, suspicions…

Why robots? Were they training them for something? Did the war exist as some giant testing or training?

No. It was obvious. Their weapons supplier always wanted them to buy something flashier - a golden - Australium - weapon, a killcount counter, new weapons with different functions. The war allowed this company to thrive on the endless weapons they pushed out that broke within a week. The reason their paychecks were so large was because they earned so much money. So why robots? And why no respawn? Yes, he supposed death was imminent outside of their respawn tower, which, as far as he was concerned, he had never seen a trace of. But did that mean the reckless mercenaries were going to have to be more careful with their lives? Were they going off-site, ignoring control points to fight against a bigger enemy?

Robots. That word was lodged in his mind, an annoying fleck of celery stuck right in that one area, that even a toothpick couldn't dislodge. Floss was needed.

But what was mindfloss? Did such a thing even exist? He hadn't typed it into any document recorder, but he was sure a red squiggly line would pop up. What could be his mindfloss?

Robots. That one word. Somehow involved in all of this, the center of an ongoing conflict that no one seemed aware of yet. His sixth sense had kicked in and yet he still couldn't see the reason why.

Robots. He gummed and lolled the word, chewed on it, spat it out just to see what it would look like. No insights came to him, other than the fact that he was envisioning a nice, medium-rare, done-well piece of venison instead of working on the robot dilemma. He sighed and shook his head to clear his thoughts. Well, figuratively, as his body was a flaming shell on the ground somewhere. Focusing on the image of his charred body, crumpled on the ground, helped him ignore the… the… stuff - yes, that was the word, _stuff_ \- brewing around in his mind.

As he focused on the battle below, his eyes rested on the carnage. It seemed Heavy had finished off the BLU Scout eventually. Medic and Heavy crept around, seeming wary. Hadn't they finished off the entire BLU team? Miles checked: BLU Pyro, dead, knife in back. BLU Scout - ew, Heavy had done a number on him. BLU Spy. Yeah, he had shot him to death, hadn't he?

He searched through his memory - instant-replay! - but couldn't find anything he had missed.

Oh. Oh, no. No, how did he miss it?

As he was focused on his team, taking out the two Snipers, the BLU Engineer - whom the Guardian had assumed was nonexistent - had snuck back to the second control point, where he had a running Sentry and Dispenser.

He talked, and found his voice carried over the plane of death into the plane of the living. "Heavy, Medic."

They responded by looking around quizzically, as if he was warning them of something. He could see the pair near the first point.

"The BLU team has an Engineer stationed near the second point. It's already level 3, but if you could pop your über on them it might work."

Heavy walked towards that direction, Medic's finger nervously hopping from his Needler's handle to the Übercharge lever on his Medigun. The red beam flowed into Heavy easily, as if powering him up for the final encounter.

The pair rushed into the line of sight of the sentry. It immediately locked onto Heavy - the bigger target - and bullets along with their explosive counterparts (rockets) flew into him. The big man didn't flinch, and Medic made his move. Both now invincible, they flew into the sentry, mowing it down like grass, along with the Engineer cowering behind his Dispenser - which was destroyed as well. BLU team being defeated, all of the deceased REDs reappeared in the Respawn room, in varying states of disorder. Scout's dog tags were flipped sideways over his hat.

Heavy and Medic stormed back their way, whereupon they piled back into their resident Sniper's van and trundled back to their base.

The first one to break the silence, inevitably, was Scout. The loudmouth started his rant with five words. "What the hell was that?"

"The friggin' Sniper was like, sixteen times faster than ours - no offense, pal -"

The RED Sniper had interjected, "I can still hear ya, ya wanker."

"- and I barely had a friggin' chance to dodge his bullet, and those stupid robots have aimbot and they are friggin' stupid why did the stupid robots come to fight us stupid friggin' stupid!"

In the end, his rant slowed down to lightspeed, a jumble of angry sounds and letters, incoherently meshed together. Miles would've understood Aboriginal better, and he didn't even know if it was a language.

"Stop." Heavy's commanding voice filled the room. "Leesten, tiny boy. There must be reason for robot attack. Is danger coming."

That shut the Bostonian up. Heavy continued. "I do not think my comrades have figured out. Pauling lady giving us training against tiny robot man. We will have to fight tiny robot man."

The Guardian stared. The big guy had more intelligence then he let on.

"War is coming."

* * *

The BLU team, restless and angry for missing out on a day of work, began to argue, preferring fighting over any other sane activity. Sam stormed away - _let the freaks shout themselves hoarse_ \- and headed to his room, sitting down on the bed and contemplating.

The BLU team had always gotten the butt end of the cigar. The interviews of the teams? The REDs got the glory. REDs always got to defend, much to the annoyance of their team's Engineer.

On the bright side, the BLUs _did_ get to blow up the RED defense areas… a lot. Sometimes, it felt like the REDs had given up. The Guardian didn't know.

But he had an irking sense that something interesting was going to happen.

* * *

RED though they were, and aggressive their color was, the team was burned out. Even the newcomer seemed tired.

Ms. Pauling stood up, tentatively stepping towards the Administrator. "Uh, ma'am?"

Cigarette smoke floated near Ms. Pauling's face. "Yes, Ms. Pauling."

"The teams are getting tired -" Ms. Pauling barely stopped herself from saying "milord" - she had been reading too many novels lately - and continued, "and I'm worried they might not be ready for the onslaught that's to come."

The Administrator made no sign she heard her, much less understood her. They stood (and sat, respectively) silently, both unwilling to back down in their mental conversation. At least, she supposed it was mental. Ms. Pauling would never know what on earth went on inside her employer's head.

Finally, it seemed, the Administrator gave in. "Alright. Go give them a pep talk. That's what girls like you should be doing."

Ms. Pauling backed away, keeping her signature pencil in her hair and her clipboard in hand. "They need motivation," the Administrator drawled on, "and you can provide it. Go convince your _friend_ to make some new changes."

Ms. Pauling knew who it was. Mr. Hale.

* * *

Saxton was getting bored again. "BIDWELL!" he shouted, beckoning his most senior advisor over. "I'm bored. Get me something to punch."

Bidwell looked over his lengthy notebook, most of it crossed out (Saxton punched a lot of things). Cutting through the thick drawl of carelessness that an Australian accent evoked was a real friendship - Saxton admired the advisor.

"Sir, next on the list was that endangered yeti. But there are some more protesters outside, if you wanted an alternative."

Saxton considered it. "Punching hippies? Anyday! Bidwell, get me an excuse for the next five minutes, and save the yeti for later."

Bidwell braced himself for what was to come next, and sure enough, it did. With an earsplitting yell of "SAXTOOOON HAAAALE!" Saxton jumped through the fairly cheap window (Bidwell arranged for this so that Saxton could have the beautiful sound of glass shattering as well as a minimum amount of lacerations to the shirtless man. It wouldn't do to cut up his chest hair in the shape of Australia) into the crowds below, where ensuing screams guaranteed gun protestors missing teeth and black eyes. A fairly squeaky scream of "No guns!" was cut off by "I'll show you the ones on my arms, pal" and a bone-crunching smash.

Bidwell winced as Reddy, the second to Bidwell, began to sweep up the glass. Another lawsuit for the company to defend itself against. Bidwell grabbed another notebook, flipping through the list of viable excuses.

* * *

A few hours after the incident, Saxton was resting easily on his chair and cooking buffalo steak on his desk for lunch. Ms. Pauling walked in through the doors.

"Ah, Paige! Welcome to Mann Co. Headquarters. I see you've come again. How's the old biddy doin'?"

"It's Pauling. And she's fine. I've come to ask you for new weapons. We need to push out motivation to the mercs."

"Right, right. So you want more weapons, eh, Pamela? Well, what's wrong with the guns we've been supplying you?"

"It's Pauling. And with all due respect, your weapons are trash. They break down within a week and I nearly drove over a pile of Force-a-Nature's on the way here. They're old and the mercs need motivation."

"Of course, Paloma. And Force-a-Nature's are not the best, sure, as well as my grandmother was Poopy Joe."

"It's Pauling. The chair I am sitting on is LITERALLY made of Force-a-Nature's!"

Saxton peered over. "Hm, you're right. Those _are_ trash. So, what can I do for ya, Pandora?"

Ms. Pauling sighed. "It's _Pauling._ We need to motivate the mercs, and we need new weaponry. Our source tells us you have a R &D department with new stuff."

The beefy Australian nodded, and stepped around his desk. "Alright then, come with me."

Saxton punched a… a… sort of pressure-activated switch. "Force: 1,364 pounds. Saxton Hale. Confirmed. Access granted."

A door opened in the wall, and a hiss of steam burst out. Inside, many different cases lay closed.

"Right, feel free to take a complimentary glass of champagne."

Ms. Pauling reached for a delicate glass, filled with red liquid.

"But don't, actually. That's for high-paying customers, and to be fair, you guys don't do that. If you break it that'll be one million alone."

Ms. Pauling hurriedly placed it back on the exquisitely carved marble pedestal.

"Anyways, all of this experimental technology is very expensive. You don't have the money to buy that. What you can buy is in the back room."

Saxton Hale led the assistant towards a dingy room in the back of the expansive showcase room. Inside, a half-crushed, half-empty (huh, I suppose Ms. Pauling's a pessimist), somber little can of BONK!™.

"You can have that for half a dollar. Some employee left it back here."

Ms. Pauling "politely" declined and went forwards, anticipating what was to come next. Saxton reached into a box and dug out…

"The DOUBLE Force-a-Nature! See, I'll give it to you for the great price of two Force-a-Nature's! As well as that, I'll give you a solvent to dissolve the glue holding them together! Then you'll get two for the price of… eh… two."

Ms. Pauling shook her head.

"Ah, a crafty haggler, eh? Alright then, half off!"

No.

"Well, still trying to haggle? Sorry, the offer's off - you can pay original price. I don't like hagglers. Leaving so soon? Alright, goodbye, Paula. Say hello to the old girl for me!"

 _Close enough._

* * *

Ms. Pauling, dressed in black combat gear, snuck into the office of a one very irritating Saxton Hale. Seeing the switch from earlier, she ran over and kicked it with all her might.

"Force: 300 pounds. Not Saxton Hale. Alarms activated."

The wailing noise of the alarms began and were shut off quickly, as Ms. Pauling had just hurled a rocket into the switch.

"Force: 1,382 pounds. Saxton Hale. Confirmed. Access granted."

Within a few minutes, Ms. Pauling had all the crates underneath her arm and was leaving behind a quaint sticky note in their places.

"IOU: about one hundred million dollars. - Pauling"

As she left the premises, she received a phone call from Saxton Hale. "Hello, Ms. Pauling. I've decided to reiterate our old deal. I'll include the soda WITH the double Force-a-Nature. And, I'll keep your ¼ of the price deal. Alright?"

She just ran off.

* * *

The RED Guardian woke up groggily, and everything was yellow. Literally. Light streamed in through the window, and the florescent light bulb did nothing to prevent the happy color from blasting Miles' brain.

Grumbling, he removed the source of the yellowness, a simple flyer tacked onto the window. It simply read, "see me - pauling"

His mind blanked… he knew that name from somewhere. For now, though, he couldn't recall. Maybe if he found another color to flash into his room, to jog his memory, he jokingly thought.

Maybe purple, or… purple! Ms. Pauling, the woman who hired him. Oh, she was going to get a good punch - knocking him out without even asking, grumble grumble...

The Engineer stood outside his room, evidently poised to knock. "Oh, hey! Didja get one of these as well?"

The Guardian, too sore and sleep-ridden to do much, just held his note out.

It was knocked out of his hand by a energy-drink powered red blur, who immediately stopped. You could've heard his brakes miles away.

"Whoa, hey, you got one too? Dang, I could've sworn she wanted to meet me alone…"

The Scout continued to state how her eyes were "so deep that you continually lost yourself in them" (since when did he know that kind of language?) while simultaneously trying to deflect blame off his obvious crush.

Ignoring the twitterpated runner, the pair of intellectuals headed towards the meeting room in which they could interact with the officials in charge. The Spy was already there, assuming head position at the table, as well as already speaking to Ms. Pauling.

"... so I've arranged for the new shipments to be sent over as well as the fixes…"

Spy interrupted. "Not my Dead Ringer!"

Ms. Pauling, shocked, momentarily dropped her clipboard. "H - how'd you know about that, Spy?"

"I have my ways."

"W - well, anyways, it's already been finalized, sorry… Oh, Guardian! And Dell - Engineer! Good to see you!"

Suddenly, the door flew open, and in walked a burly Australian man.

"IT'S TIME FOR AUSTRALIAN JUSTICE!"


	7. Meet the End

The Guardian

Hello! I'd just like to notify you guys of this little poll I made, for story purposes ^_^ (note you can vote multiple times so if you're trying to get yours to win go ahead and spam vote):  /7221604

As well as that, I'm planning to make a website (a free google one cuz i ain't got no moneyz) to make a sort of update log. Here it is:  site/meettheguardianupdatelog/

Yeah, a bit long. I'll use a link shortener to shorten it, but if you're afraid of "scam links" you might as well deal with the lengthy version.

Here:  /tenthwheelupdates

Oh, yeah! I recently updated how the chapters begin ~ yeeeey

Disclaimer: All TF2 Characters ARE NOT MINE.

Enjoy!

Sorry for the short update - I needed time off - so freakin' tired

Note: I need the results of the Pyro Gender poll in order to continue writing - please do that asap 3

* * *

"What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't a slave? Tell me that."

The next thing Guardian knew, a hairy fist had smashed his brains clear out to the other side of the room, and he returned back to the murkiness of respawning.

Who was that and why did they PUNCH ME?

Hate filled him, a hot hate, burning through his currently dead veins.

He vowed vengeance.

* * *

Upon charging into the meeting room, he chanced upon a gruesome sight. His two comrades flopped on the floor, ragdoll-like. A burly Australian stood over the corpses, and turned around as soon as he entered the room.

Oh. Crap.

The man grinned. "The name's Saxton Hale. But you can call me SIR."

The Australium-fueled rampage continued as Hale smashed the table in two. "And since your employer, Paula, decided to steal my R&D weapons -"

"IT'S PAULING!"

"Whatever. You're indebted to me now, and I intend to use it. Gray is invading my company -"

Gray? Like the color?

"- and is going to attack ALL of my facilities… oh, maybe tomorrow."

Pauling groaned. "He's right. Gray Mann is attacking and you're kind of screwed - our defenses are spread so thin to protect them they might as well be nonexistent. We're making BLU and RED work together on this, but even if we had only one person per facility -"

Hat-making companies…

"We'd still be leaving at the very least three undefended. So we've decided to center our efforts around the main facilities. In teams of six, you guys will defend the most important areas."

Guardian spoke up. "So, which facilities are being attacked by what?"

"Oh… the facilities will be picked by Mr. Hale here, and… ah, robots."

I KNEW IT.

Somehow, deep in the midst of respawn, he had known. How? Psychic pickups? Technological blips?

Whatever. A more important issue was at stake here.

"Am I getting paid?"

He knew the answer before the big man said it.

"No."

Oh boy. Andrea's brother was not going to be happy.

The fact of the matter was - pay was the least of Guardian's worries.

* * *

Sam smirked as soon as he received the meeting notification. He already knew what it was about. What? I mean, they paid the BLU snoop to snoop, why couldn't he snoop if he wanted to?

He knew that the corporation that paid him also paid the REDs to fight them, and that the next step was robots. He also knew that the same meeting was happening at the RED base, and he knew that they were officially indentured servants. For the short amount of their lives.

He also knew there was a great chance of them dying - permanently.

So, he elected to watch the RED proceedings instead of attending the BLU meeting.

And that was why his smirk was erased off of his face as soon as he saw Hale smash his brother's face through the wall.

Anger filled him - don't you dare touch my brother.

Was this mission going to be worth it?

* * *

Several years passed of bloody fighting, day in, day out, robot dead, robot crush…

The teams grew closer than ever before, and the money the mercenaries grabbed from the dead robots was exponential. Saxton Hale was out of office now - Gray controlled the company, and he hired an old team of mercenaries to come kill them. The robot attacks were over, and the hunters became the hunted.

The mercenaries scattered over the world - both Heavies retiring back to northern Russia, going back home to protect their families, Engineers going back to Texas to work for some high-end company, Snipers going back to Australia, Pyros… uh… back to who knows where… Demomans back to their mum's house, Scouts back to Boston. Soldiers headed somewhere in America, obviously. Spy's expertise was disappearance, and thus disappeared accordingly.

But the Guardians? Their family was each other now. Inseparable, they wandered throughout the world, defending themselves from the old mercenaries like old pros.

They had seen quite a few things - an alien invasion, a world war...

Then they received a call from an old acquaintance, one whose voice they hardly remembered.

"Hey. It's Pauling. We've got to come back together and get back the company. Gray Mann is dead. But an even more deadly force has the company now. It's the old mercs. They're coming for you with even more firepower than you've ever thought. And we need to beat them first. We're infiltrating their base. Come back."

What could they do? Adventure called.


End file.
